An urgency born of hope
Hart-Anderson preaches at NEXT church conference’s closing worship service
By Carmen Fowler LaBerge, The Layman, March 1, 2011
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DALLAS, Texas – The Rev. Dr. Tim Hart-Anderson, lead pastor of the thriving and theologically progressive Westminster Presbyterian Church in downtown Minneapolis, Minn., wasted no time drawing a dividing line in the sermon delivered during the closing worship service of the NEXT church conference held at First Presbyterian Church of Dallas, February 27-28.
He said that, “There are least two ways to live the gospel.” One he characterized as “Cautious,” saying, “this is the deliberate, careful, studied approach.” Hart-Anderson said that this approach asks, “how many ways can this go wrong?” Then, he said, there is another way. That way he described as “Urgent,” saying, “it assumes failure but goes ahead anyway. The urgent approach says ‘this news is too good not to be shared right now!'” He observed that, “In the Presbyterian church today, we are in desperate need of the latter.”
Drawing on Acts 1:1-14, Hart-Anderson returned listeners to the realities of the time between the resurrection of Jesus and His ascension into heaven.”For 40 days it’s all resurrection all the time.” Noting that the disciples seem slow to embrace the radically new reality of the resurrection calling, Hart-Anderson observed that, “They finally get around to asking, ‘Is this the time?'” Then he begs the question, “What more do they need? What more are they looking for?”
Drawing a parallel to the behavior of many Presbyterian sessions, Hart-Anderson pointed to the behavior of the disciples after Jesus’ ascension. Having received the commission of Jesus, “these cautious men go into a room, close the door and call the meeting to order. A vacancy on the board needs to be filled!” He acknowledged, “that’s one way to do gospel, one way to do church. It emphasizes order and structure and evaluation – and it has worked well for us in certain seasons.”
Turning the corner and using Mark 1:1-15 as his text, Hart-Anderson said, “Then, there’s another way.” Picking up the homoletical pace to make his point, Hart-Anderson described Mark’s sense of immediacy, saying, “he’s in a hurry – it’s a breathless narrative – the time is fulfilled – the Kingdom of God is at hand.”
Driving the point home, Hart-Anderson weighs the two approaches: “Is this the time?” and after a pregnant pause, “Now is the time.” He then asked provocatively, “Presbyterian church, which will it be?”
Hart-Anderson turned to the Confession of 1967 to support his point. “In the Confession of 67 we said, ‘God’s reign is present as a ferment in the world.’ …and we said there was an ‘urgency born of this hope.’”
He declared that “we need no other motivation or rationale, let’s go!”
He then shared from his personal experience. “I grew up in Chicago, in a manse, the son of a minister.” Hart-Anderson acknowledges the liberal leanings of his upbringing. But after attending McCormick Theological Seminary he said “my ministry began in and among the conservative evangelicals in Orange County.” He said that he learned a lot from “colleagues on the other side of the ecclesiastical aisle.” But then, alluding to the recent action of many of those colleagues to form the Evangelical Covenant Order of Presbyterians, Hart-Anderson declared, “an ecosystem that is mono-cultural is not sustainable.” The NEXT church crowd applauded.
Returning to his personal testimony about his time on the staff of Los Ranchos Presbytery, Hart-Anderson said that he was interviewed by a news reporter about the growth of the church. The reporter asked, “To what do you attribute all the church growth?” Hart-Anderson said his response was “We Presbyterians are on fire for Jesus,” and then said, “The reporter seemed surprised. And I immediately hoped my McCormick classmates would never see that quote.” He added, “But from the vantage point of 25 years of ministry, I wonder, ‘was that comment that far off?'”
Sharing another personal story to illustrate his point, Hart-Anderson said that after many cycles of preaching the common lectionary the process and the sermon preparation had grown stale. He then said, “There’s nothing wrong with the Lectionary, I was the problem. My preaching needed a change and so did I.” His solution was “I preached an entire year on Jesus.” When he shared that plan with his congregation, he recalled that “there was an audible gasp from the pew.”
Hart-Anderson admits “A year preaching Jesus; I didn’t know if I could make it. I didn’t know if there was that much to say about Jesus. But after a year, He became an active companion for our congregation. It forced us to talk about our relationship with Jesus. Something, oddly enough, I had never had to tackle in all those homiletical years.”
Turning to the realities beyond congregations in the denomination, Hart-Anderson shared from his experience in the Presbytery of the Twin Cities. He said, “Our presbytery, like yours, is trying to keep things from flying apart. We’re trying to keep things more or less together.” He then acknowledged something that had yet to be mentioned publicly about the NEXT church, “The looming schism in the church is real.”
During what Hart-Anderson described as “a kind of permanent state of distractedness,” Presbyterian churches “are in real trouble.” He pointed to the threat of closure of a church in his city as an example. He said that “out of the ashes of an old dying church, Westminster is seeking to ignite a new worshiping community in uptown Minneapolis. This will be the 17th church that Westminster has helped start.” He says that his elders responded with “good Presbyterian questions.” Hart-Anderson recalled that from the cautious place they asked, “How much will it cost? How much of your time will it take? How will we find the right person? Can we be sure it will work?” Eventually, Hart-Anderson said, “one person asked the question under all the questions, ‘Why are we doing this?'” He recalled the lingering silence and the answer that finally came, “because this is what the Church has always done.”
He expanded the point, saying, “The church has always had an impulse to start new worshiping communities.” Recalling that session meeting he shared, “The urgency born of hope had snuck into the room and we were off and running.”
Seeking to ignite the NEXT church with a similar passion, Hart-Anderson shared an experience from a recent trip to Africa and then concluded by saying, “There are at least two ways to do the gospel. One way stays in the other room and tinkers and the good news becomes stale news. The other, with an urgency born of hope, gets on with the business of being God’s people.”
NEXT is asking “What’s next for the PCUSA?” According to published materials, “The mission of NEXT Church is to foster relationships among God’s people: sparking imaginations, connecting congregations, living a distinctively Presbyterian witness to Jesus Christ for the world today. Trusting in God’s sovereignty and grace, NEXT Church will engage the church that is becoming by: cultivating vital connections
, celebrating emerging leadership and innovation, and working with congregations and leaders to form and reform faith communities.”
NEXT has held two national conferences in February 2011 at Second Presbyterian Church in Indianapolis and 2012 in Dallas. The next NEXT conference is scheduled for March 4-5, 2013 in Charlotte, N.C.